Excerpts from... ========================================= Terror in our Fields...Poison in our Food ========================================= by Anne Stevens Grey City Journal [U. of Chicago PSN], Oct 26, 1990 "The grape boycott has consumed most of Chavez's time for the past five years [..] The United Farmworkers (UFW) wants consumers to boycott California table grapes, which are the majority of grapes in supermarkets. Pesticide use is the major issue, but Chavez is also calling for fair elections in the unions, good-faith bargaining, and testing for pesticide residues. Grapes are currently the most-sprayed crop, but others will be looked at once the current boycott is lifted. Pesticide use has increased dramatically since the early days of Chavez's career as an organizer. Currently the grape industry sprays 8 million pounds each year. UFW is targeting five carcinogenic and birth-defect-causing chemicals: captan, diroseb, methyl bormide, parathion, and phosdrin. Over 300,000 people are poisoned each year by these chemicals. As the pesticides are sprayed, a portion drifts through the air to neighboring communities and another hits the ground and seeps into the water table, affecting drinking water supplies. The residues also enter the grapes and cannot be washed off. Thus the worker are poisoned in three ways: by breathing, drinking, and eating. One worker gave birth to a child with no arms or legs as a result of exposure to captan. In the San Joaquin valley, a grape-growing area, childhood cancer rates are 1200% higher than the national average and in McFarland, CA, eleven children have developed cancer in a six-block area. Six have already died. [In this talk, Chavez mentioned another locale near heavy pesticide use, with some 800%(?) higher cancer rate than the national average; Chavez also mentioned UFW's boycott in the 1970's to ban DDT; at the time the companies said that without DDT, they wouldn't be able to grow grapes. Two years after UFW's boycott finally forced the companies to sign an agreement stopping the use of all DDT (among other conditions), the U.S. federal government banned DDT --HB] Pesticides are a widespread problem, with 50,000 workers in California relying on grapes for their income. In spite of this, the government is doing very little. A 1975 California labor law protecting farm workers has not been enforced in many years, in part because the grape growers contribute substantially to the Republicans in office. The governor vetoed a bill which would have required warning signs in sprayed fields, even though in 1985 a worker died after entering a field an hour after it was sprayed. The workers face no protection from pesticides, low wages, and a corporitized industry which threatens unions with blacklisting and physical violence [The UFW video "The Wrath of Grapes" contains footage of hired thugs breaking up and beating people at a union polling place --HB] In 1983 Rene Lopez, a farm worker, was shot in the face at a dairy farm after voting for the union. [...] Chavez thinks the supermarket industry should take responsibility for the products they sell. He says grapes can be grown safely without chemicals, but the industry finds it easier not to look for non-toxic solutions. Chavez earns less than the average grape worker, yet has risen to international fame. [...] Chavez is currently on a speaking tour of colleges and universities, following his arrest and jailing last month. A California judge had issued a temporary restraining order making it illegal to leaflet, picket, talk to customers [!] or engage in any boycott activity at or near Von's, major chain of supermarkets in California. Chavez and his grandchildren were arrested under this order, but the judge who issued it later declared it unconstitutional. Chavez's activism in the labor movement spans his entire life, so arrests and boycotts are not new to him. In 1962 he was elected president of the National Farm Workers Association, which brought improvements in the conditions of California grape workers. In 1965 he assisted in organizing a strike of 800 workers in the Delano vineyards for higher wages. This led to his first boycott, first of Delano, and three years later of all California grapes. During this period the NFWA merged with the strikers to form the current United Farm Workers. By 1970, 80% of the grape industry was under UFW control. Chavez first dealt with the pesticide issue in 1969, when he issued a letter about their dangers. [..] If you would like to get involved in the issue more deeply, write to: United Farm Workers of America, AFL-CIO c/o H.E.R.E. Local 1, 55 W. Van Buren, Chicago, IL 60605 or call Roberto De La Cruz at (312) 776-0615 ################################################################## [Chicago Tribune, Sunday, October 28, 1990, p. 21, by Jorge Casus] =========================================== The last three paragraphs (of 32 paragraphs): "`Farmers are the greatest inventors in the world,' said Steve Pavich, who grows 2,000 acres of table grapes without using pesticide. `Once a farmer jumps into organic farming, you find out that you've been lied to for many, many years. Once growers get out of the chemical trip, their food is better and more cost effective.' Pavich acknowledges that the conversion to organic farming is hard work, but he sees no other alternative. `If we don't clean it up, then our next generation is going ot pay for it,' Pavich said. `Enough is enough.'" The first three paragraphs: "For two weekends now, James Eckert has left his Belleville, Ill., apple and peach orchards to canvass the political precincts of California. Two thousands miles from home, Eckert has joined hundreds of other farmers knocking on doors and giving away flowers and packages of almonds in an effort to regain teh confidence of the Amrrican consuer. That confidence, which many farmers fear is dwindling, will be put to the test Nov. 6, when California voters decide whether to ban pesticides that farmers have relied on for years to make their produce more attractive and their harvests more stable." After much propaganda about industry and agribusiness "concerns" about the "16,000 word initiative" ("Big Green") and about "alarm about the prospect" of having to change "tried methods," and informing us that "If `Big Green' is approved, court challenges are nearly certain. It also could trigger renewed efforts in Congress to restrict states' rights on pesticide regulation," the article sporadically mentioned relevant facts, putting the most potent near the very end: -> * The pesticide industry makes $7 billion per year. -> * Agribusiness has raised $5 million to defeat Big Green. -> * Large chemical companies are among nine of t 10 biggest contributors to the campaign to defeat `Big Green,' donating some $3.5 million. -> * More than 3,000 drinking-water wells in California have been contaminated with pesticides, 1,500 of which have been shut down. [some paragraphs after quoting various more opponents of Big Green, including a someone who said Big Green is "anti-science," the article reveals near the end:] -> * Some 600 million pounds of pesticides are sold annually in California -> * As little as 1 percent of these chemicals, "Big Green proponents" say, reaches targeted pests, while the remainder contaminates land, water, air and food. [Actually less than 1 percent; see GAN resoure file under statistics an references -- HB] -> * There has been a 21.5 percent increase in childhood cancer since 1950, as well as various "cancer clusters" among farm workers in California's San Joaquin Valley However, regarding these "Cancer clusters" only the total number of victims, not the sizes of the "small towns" or, more relevantly (see Grey City Journal article below), how much higher the cancer rates are than the national average!